Higuchi-san

This is Higuchi-san the mascot for Higuchi Pharmacy. Like a lot of Idle Idols I’ve found he obviously decided his own image would make a great mascot. Its surprising how many fat middle aged company presidents have made the same choice. Higuchi-san on the other hand is pretty slim and he had the great idea of including himself sitting on an elephant.

Surprisingly as he’s not that common, this was probably one of the first Japanese mascots I discovered when I was in Tokyo on a two week trip. I stumbled across it near my hotel and was amazed by the unusualness of it. It has to be one of my favourite Idle Idols. The vibrant colours,the disproportionally large head, his happy face and confident pose.

In the bottom picture you can see some numbers on the wall behind this large mascot in Osaka. In neon the numbers 1327 light up behind the oversized Higuchi head. This is because in an early commercial Higuchi Toshio the founder can be seen sitting on a real elephant declaring his intention for opening 1327 stores. This advert was the inspiration behind the mascot. Higuchi-san has still to realise his ambition of opening the magic number of stores as by the time the company expanded to 500 they started to see a decline in profits.

Feb 22, 2010 | Filed under Doctor, Mascot.

Tags: drug store, Higuchi, Japan, Osaka, pharmacy, Tokyo, Toshio